In contrast, the Linton family of Thrushcross Grange is the representative household of Overlove with its tendency to overprotect and coddle children, treating them as "petted things.

Once adulthood is reached, the mentalities formed in childhood by Unlove and Overlove have different ways of combatting the threat of the intruder and fulfilling the desperate need for secure possession of love.

the brandished staff attains in the fiction of Emily Bronte the force of an archetype whose recurrence in the text signifies the pervasive influence of the mentalities of Overlove and Unlove connected with it.

One displays the attitude toward loneliness associated with the Unlove at Wuthering Heights; the other displays the attitude toward loneliness associated with the Overlove at Thrushcross Grange.

But while loneliness protects Lockwood from the childish dependence that love would revive, it also gives him an Overlove more secure than any that real love in adulthood could provide.

The opposition between Heathcliff and Lockwood--and, more especially, between the mentalities of Unlove and Overlove connected with them--can be further clarified by juxtaposing the two scenes in the novel involving a window-breaking and bloodletting struggle with a dreaded intruder: Lockwood's second nightmare and Heathcliff's nocturnal return from Catherine's grave.

The mentalities formed by Unlove and Overlove have different ways of responding to this threat.

Unlike those formed by Overlove, characters connected with Unlove do not need to maintain a distance between themselves and the pain of separation.

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